The Pilgrim: Part I
The Pilgrim: Part I
Howling wind gives way to gentle rustle:
Pine needles and old bark sing to the coming night
And the Great Silence greets my evening light, a
Single candle gleaming bright amidst the black without
While these sinews twist into the posture of peace, I hear
A knock, and wincing, I wait.
The heavy breaths shatter whatever prayer was mine
Before this night: one of thousands upon this mountain
Closed in by stone, by wood, by skin, flesh, and bone,
A temple to perennial truth, each breath a new liturgy
As wind drawn in swallows the dying world outside and
Returns an exhale full of Light, simple, furious Love.
A second knock, and remembering Benedict, I
Turn the rusted iron and the heavy wood gives way
A weary man staring with flint-grey eyes, hollow
And streaked red with pain, there is perhaps a look of
Shock, as if he never knew the world could be so cruel and
Full of hate.
Commentary on Stanzas 1-3:
The narrative introduced is a familiar one, a study in solitude seen from the eyes of a hermit, or "desert" dweller. Following the example of Abbas St. Antony of Egypt, scores of Christians fled the urban centers of Late Roman Antiquity for the solitude of the desert; they sought freedom from society's moral decay embodied by the Empire's recent endorsement of the religion it once violently persecuted. Anthony himself was inspired to follow Jesus' commands to "go, sell all that you have to the poor, and you will have treasures in heaven"(Matt 19:21). From this movement all Christian monasticism sprang, first the eremites of the desert, who, like Anthony, sought solitude and freedom from worldly affairs, while the cenobites desired a degree of separation yet in the context of community. Our narrator thus dwells firmly within this tradition, hinting at the first of the great Western monastic orders, the followers of St. Benedict of Nursia (480-c.545), who pray at regular intervals and observe the "Great Silence" in the quiet hours of the night. We cannot determine (at least immediately) any particular geography or time period for which to relate this story, other than the vague yet evocative environmental details of wind and pine trees. The curious physical details of "sinews twist into the posture of peace" suggest a familiarity with the traditions of the East...yoga, vinyasa, etc.
Yet still the pilgrim knocks, and the hermit must rise from prayer to attend to his guest. He adheres to Benedict's own advice to "never open at the first knock" but shows considerably more mercy than his predecessor (the Rule adjures the community to only receive someone as a guest after four or five days of begging at the door -RoSB 58.3). Although there isn't much detail given to the man's appearance, his eyes stand out to the hermit, "flint grey, hollow...streaked red with pain..." indicative of some recent bought of suffering. The questions that arise in the mind of the reader would lend themselves to the circumstances of such pain: is this merely due to the man's difficult physical journey? Are the elements so very harsh outside? Has this man suffered a deeper loss? Is he trying to escape something? In the mind of the hermit, there is something resembling surprise, and his cynical worldview is betrayed by the description of everything else outside: the world is cruel and full of hate. While these are typical views of the Church Fathers (and certainly the dwellers of the desert who preceded them all), we do not understand the reasons for this type of response, or even the emotions that we can observe projected upon the younger pilgrim.
A weary arm waved towards you, and you
Enter, crossing the threshold with damp boots
Shod with the first snow of winter, a long autumn
Behind us both, the last trees stripped bare as you
Open your mouth and a groan escapes, so I
Hand you the last of my soup.
You eat like an animal, I am used to my fasts, and so
The sight of ribs beneath skin does not scare me
Like it did so many years before, in the days
When I was not alone, and I clung to my life more
Fervently than this poor soul does as he
Shovels the beans and roots between his cracked lips.
A cough, and another gasp of pain, a deeper
Rattle as you cling to your side and
I take your coat, laying it down by the fire to dry
And observe the claw marks and a bullet hole
Joining the pattern of woven embroidery that
Someone who loved this man surely made.
Commentary: Stanzas 4-6
In this next section there are no words exchanged, yet the pilgrim's gaze is drawn to a few details that help us gain more insight into the world that these two men inhabit. Though we have a sliver of new information gained regarding the world that they inhabit (that it is close to winter), the pain in the man's eyes turns out to be more than the projected internalized hatred that marked the hermit's first glimpse at his guest. In the midst of a very real pain, the simple act of sharing a meal becomes the currency of what it means to be hospitable, and the hermit has the chance of greeting one "as if it were Christ himself" in the truest vein of the Benedictine tradition. Yet this is a hospitality bereft of a table. In fact, the hermit views this man as little more than an animal, eating soup on his hands and knees (or at least, though this detail is left out, we can imagine it easily if we compose the place in our mind). He clings to his own religious experience when faced with the presence of the Other, for his reaction reminds him of his own familiarity with the practice of fasting. A more biblically literate reader would be reminded of the prophet Isaiah, when in Chapter 58 we read:Is this not, rather, the fast that I choose: releasing those bound unjustly,
untying the thongs of the yoke;
Setting free the oppressed,
breaking off every yoke?
Is it not sharing your bread with the hungry, bringing the afflicted and the homeless into your house;Clothing the naked when you see them, and not turning your back on your own flesh?
Thus the hermit has the chance to engage in the prophetic office of liberation, by which the works of mercy are the means to achieving the righteous favor for which exiled Israel sought. The hermit feeds the man and takes him in, fulfilling in a perfunctory way the basic standards of his tradition and the calling of Christian service. Yet his ambivalent posture towards the man could easily slip into prejudice or a dismissive sense of superiority, as seen in the earlier comment about fasting, and more explicitly in his evaluation of the man as a "poor soul." The pilgrim's cloak shows the marks of hardships: a beast's claw marks, and a bullet hole. Apart from confirming the hermit's earlier suspicions, we get a glimpse into his own pain for a split second. Though we hear no hint of judgment in the observation, the embroidered coat was made by "someone who loved him" and thus shows us that this hermit has a history at this point left untold.
For long moments we stare into the fire, its warmth
A comfort from the cold of night, yet I do not
Fear the Silence, which is deeper, and holds more
Wounds than are spoken by the man's quiet gaze,
He clears his throat, another flash of pain focused
On his side I've cleaned as we watch bloody gauze burn.
"You are the only one left," he says at last, and
Adds with a resigned sigh that "I never thought this
Road would end at all..." as we drink of our dessert,
The cool Silence that takes its place among us again,
And I respond after another draught the only truth
I have to offer: "The Road is never over."
He nods quietly and breaths normally, at last,
A shred of humanity left in this husk that has no doubt
Lost a great deal on this Road he speaks of; It
Always does that, the world takes and takes and
Pretends to offer everything in exchange for your
Very soul, that which only God can claim at long last in Death.
Commentary: Stanzas 7-9
Here the conversation starts, and it is appropriate that we leave behind the particulars of why, where, and when this man began his journey. The Hermit remembers that the Silence between them speaks of the deeper aforementioned truth, namely, that the Love unifying all things is deeper and more profound than any wisdom wrought with words, images, or rituals. Simple hospitality, the capacity to listen, and sharing as humans brings out the type of healing inherent in this space, a sacred and wholesome communion. The Silence is big enough to hold the wounds that the man carries with him, and though we are exposed to the Hermit's presumption yet again (he reads pain in the man's gaze), we are led to a simple truth that sometimes words are not necessary for real work to be done upon us.
They do not speak of religion. The man's first words are not carried with any explicit emotion, but we can imagine a mix of dismay, despair, and amazement that this hermit is the last of a once great tradition of people that fled the world to find solace in the silence of prayer. We do not know how this pilgrim understands such prayer, or even if his interests are religious; for all we know he could be some journalist or cultural vagabond working on a piece for National Geographic. Whatever the case, he has borne the price of such a journey, and his pain is apparent. Yet he appears to take comfort in the completion of his journey, or pilgrimage, if you will. Surprisingly enough, the Hermit responds with hard-won wisdom (which we will turn to in later stanzas): that the Road is never over. The implications of such a statement are explained in the last lines as we are led to the heart of the Hermit's understanding of life: it explicit connection to the acceptance of Death. This is the ultimate Meaning of such a story, insofar as we try to escape the struggles of the world, we merely find a more straightforward route to the bosom of the Creator through the path that all humans must take: our own inescapable mortality.
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